


Feathers and Claws

by themegalosaurus



Series: Oh Sam tripleplay fics [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Demonic Possession, Gen, Horror, Hurt Sam, Hurt Sam Winchester, Possession, Teen Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 02:43:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5230835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themegalosaurus/pseuds/themegalosaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You're doing it wrong," Sam wants to say, but the devil in his mouth won't let him.</i>
</p><p>Written for the <a href="http://ohsam.livejournal.com/845164.html">Oh Sam tripleplay</a> to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/indiachick">indiachick</a>'s prompt: LOCATION: Decrepit old building / SECONDARY CHARACTER: A priest / AFFLICTION: Demonic possession</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feathers and Claws

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up: some woozy consent issues, it is about possession after all...

_You’re doing it wrong_ , Sam wants to say, but the devil in his mouth won’t let him. His tongue snaps like a live thing, out of control. “That the best you got, old man?”  
  
The priest trembles, dust on his hair and on his robes, shaken from the broken rafters of the church where the sky shines in. His hair is white and his hands are papery, the knuckles swollen and the fingerbones twisted and bent. He’s pointing at Sam. “Vade retro, satana,” he says.  
  
There’s a kick in Sam’s spine where the words take hold, a flinch, but it’s transient. It’s not enough.  
  
On the floor behind, six bodies spread-eagle, six black-clad men whose necks snapped sharp with a flick of Sam’s finger and thumb. The last one was young, foreign, beautiful. He was scared. He’d tried to run and the others had shamed him. “We need you,” they’d said. And then they’d fallen in seconds, dull on the tiles amongst the rubble and the man had stood there breathing heavy and Sam hadn’t been able to close his eyes. The crow-thing, raven-thing inside him had screeched and the man’s face had dropped into a bleak kind of certainty and Sam had watched the jerk of his head and the roll of his eyes as he died.  
  
_No,_  Sam had thought,  _I won’t I won’t_  and somehow taken hold, clawed back the bird into the prison of his ribs but he can feel it stirring inside him. He can’t. He doesn’t. He’s too afraid to move. This old man is standing before him fragile and furious in the moonlight and Sam can’t tell him to run away because he can’t control both limbs  _and_  tongue. One slip and the man is meat amongst the carved stone bodies of the saints.  
  
Why won’t he run?  
  
The priest picks up his book and he starts speaking. The words are wrong. Something must have got into the book, crawled into the pages and rearranged the text because this prayer is doing nothing to subdue the monster whose claws are threatening the membrane of Sam’s lungs. Instead, every syllable seems to feed it, feathers to its beating wings.   
  
Sam’s spine is splintering. Something is hatching from inside him. His vision turns hazy, red-black. The priest is almost inaudible, whispering, licking his lips where his mouth is dry. It’s not. Sam’s too weak. He can’t hold on.

The power rushes up to fill him, burning to the tips of his body, and Sam convulses in a pleasure that he can’t control. The bird is singing joyfully. His fingers burn hot. His chest is swelling, bubbling with it. The priest is going to die.  
  
And.  
  
There’s a shout from the door. The priest turns his head, startled, as Dad comes in, scrambling rough-footed over the corpses and the stones.  
  
“Be quiet,” he says, harsh and breathless to this bent old cleric and Sam’s suddenly conscious of his position on the altar, elevated, ashamed, exposed.  
  
“Exorcisamus te,” Dad begins, “omnis immundus spiritus sancti.” The shift in Sam’s chest is enough to say that this time the words are what’s needed. As Dad keeps speaking, definite and clear, the beak and the claws start to loosen their hold. It’s enough to let Sam fight back in earnest, finding power in his father’s presence and the outrage of his stolen body, compressing the thing against the back of his throat until it flees out of his open mouth. It’s a strange kind of vomit, smoky and choking and thick. It leaves Sam’s airways burning, leaves him on his knees and grasping at the altarcloth. He dislodges a candlestick. It’s noisy on the steps within the silent church.  
  
“Sorry,” he says.  
  
“Come on,” Dad says, suddenly immediate, looming leather and sweat. His arms are under Sam’s shoulders, under Sam’s knees, carrying him like a baby. Sam wants to hide the damp at the front of his pants. “Sorry,” he says again.  
  
Out in the car, at the front of the church, Dad slides Sam into the backseat and drops a blanket into his lap. A warm plastic bottle of water appears in his hand.  
  
“You had a pretty good hold of that thing,” Dad says. For some reason, it doesn’t sound altogether like praise.  
  
“Not really,” Sam tells him. “It started. It was growing in my chest.” There’s something else growing there now, a rising hysteria which threatens to wash up and pour embarrassing out through his eyes. “I killed those people,” he says.  
  
Dad looks at him, brief and angry and something unreadable besides. “Don’t you dare say that to anybody,” he says.  
  
Sam swallows blades.  
  
“Especially your brother. You hear me, Sam? Don’t let me catch you even hinting anything to Dean about this.”  
  
Dad turns his back then, without waiting for an answer, pulls the car out onto the road and they drive in silence back to the motel. Dean must be waiting there and Sam doesn’t know what Dad’s told him, but he swings the bags into the trunk and climbs into the passenger seat without a word. Sam hears the creak of the car as Dean twists around to look at him. He closes his eyes until Dean turns back, opens them finally and watches the street lights striate across the roof. Orange. Black. Grey. Orange. Black.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd urge y'all strongly to go and [check out the Triple Play](http://ohsam.livejournal.com/845164.html) because it's a great thread with a ton of great fic. Your comments on this one very welcome, of course!


End file.
